As the 2005 regular season entered its final weeks, amid all the scrambling for playoff berths and the scratching and clawing for favorable seedings, an interesting scenario began to emerge. It seemed not only possible, but quite likely, that Super Bowl XL would mark the first time an African-American head coach would lead a team into the NFL’s biggest game.

When the playoffs began, there was Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati, turning around the woebegone Bengals, the AFC’s No. 3 seed. Lovie Smith in Chicago had done an equally remarkable job with the Bears, the second-seeded team in the NFC. And of course, there was Tony Dungy, directing the Indianapolis Colts, the league’s best in the regular season and the overwhelming favorite to reach Detroit.

The prospect of the historic first generated excitement around the NFL. Television features were done, and stories were written. Even the players and coaches themselves began pondering the significance of the potential accomplishment.

“I know it would mean a lot to me,” said Colts wide receiver Troy Walters, son of Trent Walters, a longtime NFL and collegiate assistant coach. “Having just one of them make it would show the world that black coaches can be successful if given the opportunity.”

Added Indianapolis assistant Jim Caldwell, a former collegiate head coach at Wake Forest and assistant at Colorado who aspires to a head coaching job in the NFL: “It’s important for all of us. It’s been quite evident when you look at what, not only those guys, but all the black coaches, have been able to accomplish, that it speaks well for other guys, not only myself, who hopefully will get opportunities down the line.”

As recently as 1980, the chances of that happening seemed remote at best. At that time, there not only weren’t any black head coaches, there were just a handful of assistants. It wasn’t until 2003 that two black head coaches – Dungy and the Jets’ Herman Edwards – competed against each other in an NFL playoff game.

Today, there are six African-American head coaches, and if you believe the hype bubbling around the seven current openings, there may be more to come. Surely, potential candidates will be interviewed, thanks to the Rooney Rule, the 2002 mandate, named after Pittsburgh Steelers chairman Dan Rooney, that requires teams to interview at least one minority candidate for each head coaching opening.

However, as the sun began its apex Monday, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, all three of the African-American coaches had been eliminated from the playoffs. Each had fallen to a lower-seeded, albeit smoking-hot, team. Smith’s Bears lost to the No. 5 Carolina Panthers, who have won twice on the road in the playoffs. That is also the case for the Steelers, the sixth-seeded squad that has hewn a particularly devastating path, knocking off Lewis’ Bengals and Dungy’s Colts in consecutive weeks to reach Sunday’s AFC championship game showdown in Denver.

If there were a sentimental favorite in this year’s postseason, it was Dungy, a noble man who now seems to be star-crossed in his quest for the Super Bowl. Even the victorious Steelers took no pleasure in eliminating Dungy, who was coaching a little more than three weeks after the death of his son James.

“They had such a great season. In some ways it’s a shame they didn’t accomplish their ultimate goal,” running back Jerome Bettis said. “And Coach Dungy, with all that he’s gone through, you feel bad it didn’t turn out in his favor.”

After Sunday’s game, Dungy managed to maintain his serene countenance, even carrying on with his postgame routine of mingling with friends and fans in an area not far from the Colts’ locker room. However, inside those walls, the gloom carried by the few remaining Indianapolis players was certainly magnified by what they considered a failing perhaps greater than losing a football game.

“I would have done anything to get this one for him, and then the next one and go to the Super Bowl and win that for him, too,” safety Bob Sanders said. “It would have been a year like no other. Through all the ups and downs we’ve had, Coach Dungy has been like a father to us.

“A coach like that – a man like that – you want to do anything you can to make him feel good.”

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